


Who We Were

by StormDancer



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Friends to Lovers, Head Injury, M/M, Pining, Temporary Amnesia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2020-01-04 12:54:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18344093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StormDancer/pseuds/StormDancer
Summary: For the first time, it occurs to Tyler. “Are we—are we not dating?”





	Who We Were

**Author's Note:**

> My fill for the Stars fest! For the prompt: amnesia from an injury. Because what's more fun than class fandom tropes?
> 
> Things I know nothing about: the people depicted in this fic. Actual medical science about concussions or amnesia. The Stars 2018-19 schedule, or the Stars 2014-15 schedule, for that matter, so all games/trips are entirely made up for the convenience of the story.
> 
> Enjoy!

Tyler comes to to hospital machine beepings, which never bodes well.

It bodes even less well given that he can’t remember why he’s here. In Tyler’s experience, injuries you can’t remember generally mean more time out than injuries you can. So not great. Also not great is how much his head hurts, or how unhappy his stomach is.

But he opens his eyes anyway, tries to sit up, even though it makes his head spin. There’s a guy sitting in the chair near him, someone he vaguely recognizes, who straightens excitedly when Tyler moves.

“Good, you’re awake,” he says, in a heavy Russian accent. Tyler nods, because it seems like the best thing to do. “I get doctor, you wait. And do not scare us like that again, yes? Bennie’s heart cannot take it.”

Tyler nods again, smiles more because it sounds like the Russian guy expects it than because he gets what’s happening, and then the Russian ducks out of the room.

He’s back a second later with a nurse, who bustles around checking his vitals and talking about what a scare he gave them, all that stuff. He was playing a game, Tyler picks up; there was a hit, something happened, now he’s here. They put him under? He’s not sure. He’s still confused about the Russian guy, who’s hanging around nodding like he understands all of this.

He’s working up the energy to move his mouth to ask, but then the door opens again, and Jamie walks in.

Tyler relaxes, immediately. If Jamie’s here, he trusts that everything’s going to be okay. And that he hasn’t like, switched body with someone else.

Then, immediately, he feels himself tense up again. The last time he’d seen Jamie—if anything could make Tyler blush, he would, thinking of the last time he’d seen Jamie. He squirms a little seeing if he can feel any of the bruises he knows Jamie left, he’d been holding on so hard. Unfortunately he can’t feel any of them. Where are they, even? He doesn’t hear the noises that would sound like New York City, and that’s where they were at the last game.

He expects Jamie to blush when he sees Tyler, because Jamie definitely does blush. But he doesn’t—he smiles for sure, looking relieved, but Tyler had thought Jamie would look more awkward. Jamie, as far as Tyler know, does not make it a habit of hooking up with his teammates. Tyler—well he doesn’t make it a habit, but it has been known to happen, and even then he feels a little awkward. And a little excited, even through his headache. They hooked up, not even drunk, and Jamie had given Tyler that shy pleased little smile before Tyler kissed him, and it had felt like—real. Which was sort of terrifying, but—it was Jamie.  

He tries to catch Jamie’s eyes, to express that, at least a little. They’d been rushed the next morning, getting to the game, and hadn’t had a chance to talk, but Tyler actually is excited for when they do. He’s massively into Jamie, judging from last night Jamie is pretty into him too; they’re going to rock this as hard as Jamie’s been crushing the Art Ross race, if Tyler can manage to keep both going without messing up.

Jamie meets his eyes, smiles again, hovering nearby with the Russian. “How you feeling?” he asks. It’s surprisingly unawkward. Also apparently Jamie took the time to get a haircut, which means it can’t be that serious. It’s a good look, though. Tyler is very into it.

“My head hurts.”

“You had a concussion, that’s to be expected,” the nurse says. “Okay, test. What’s your name?”

“Tyler Seguin,” Tyler replies, rolling his eyes. He wants to get out of here.

“Birthday?”

“January 31st.” Jamie’s watching Tyler, something like his captain face on. Jamie giving him captain face is always attractive, even before Tyler identified what he felt for him as more than attraction.

“President of the US?”

“Obama,” Tyler recites, and because he’s watching Jamie, he can see as his face freezes and goes scared.

///

A lot happens, after that. It is not, as Tyler thought, early 2015. It is apparently 2019, and Tyler—does not know what happened in the last four years. He barely has time to process that before he’s getting put into an MRI machine; when he comes out the Russian guy—a teammate, apparently, is gone, and Jamie is in the corner on the phone.

Tyler looks between him, and the nurse. He’s—he’s freaking out, more than a little. What if he’s permanently messed up? What if he never remembers the last four years? What if he can’t play ever again? He’d kind of like—he would really like Jamie to come over here and hold his hand, or something, as the doctor comes in, flipping through his charts.

Like he could read his mind, Jamie is somehow next to him, his hand on Tyler’s shoulder. Tyler smiles up at Jamie, or tries to. Jamie does the same expression back, but he’s got his shoulders set like he does when he decides he’s carrying them through this game, and his hand is warm on Tyler’s shoulder through the thin cloth of his robe. Tyler takes a moment to silver lining this—four years gone, but Jamie’s still here next to him. He must have done something right. 

“Mr. Seguin?” the doctor, a tall distinguished-looking black man, asks, looking towards Tyler. He glances at Jamie. “I have your results.”

“Jamie can stay,” Tyler tells him. His voice is a little hoarse.

“Are you sure?” Jamie asks. “I can—I should call your mom and update her—”

Tyler doesn’t grab Jamie’s hand to stop him from pulling away, but it’s a close call. “Stay.”

Jamie doesn’t protest again. The doctor’s lips twitch, but he just nods. “Okay. So, good news, the tests turned up clean; there’s no lingering problems.”

“Except for how according to me it’s 2015?” Tyler points out, maybe a little sharply.

The doctor smiles. “Exactly. Which means, unfortunately, that there’s not much we can do—your memory will probably come back with time.”

“Or it won’t,” Tyler fills in what the doctor isn’t saying.

“Or it won’t,” the doctor agrees, gentle but firm. “But that’s rare. Generally it does come back.”

“And there’s nothing to do to help it?” Jamie asks.

The doctor shakes his head. “Nothing reliable. Generally being among familiar circumstances can jog memory, but—we don’t know as much as we’d like about the brain.”

“So I can go home?” Tyler asks. That’ll be better than a hospital bed, at least. The dogs will be there—he thinks. He can’t imagine he changed that much in four years. He must still have the dogs.

“There’s no reason not to. Usual concussion protocols—I’ve updated your team—but there’s nothing else to do.” He glances at Jamie again. “It looks like you have a ride home?”

“Yes,” Jamie says, like it’s obvious. “Does he need to do anything else first?”

“Just sign the papers,” The doctor tells them.

It’s as easy as that, apparently—Tyler signs some things, he changes into some sweats and a t-shirt that someone must have brought him, and then he’s wheeled out to a truck—not the one he associates with Jamie, but that makes sense. Four years, he’d get a new car. It’s the same sort of car though, big enough to fit hockey players but not showy.

Jamie hovers outside the passenger side door as Tyler gets in, even though there’s nothing physically wrong with him. Only one he’s settled does Jamie get into the driver’s side.

Tyler pokes around at the car a little as Jamie starts it. There are no CDs—apparently not anymore, because there’s no drive in the car, just a USB jack. But other than that it’s still a car, sort of messy like Jamie’s always was, empty Gatorade bottles on the floor. Good to know that hasn’t changed. It’s something to hang on to.

He shoots a look at Jamie. Four years explains the glow up—the hair and the beard and the whole…thing that makes him look different than the Jamie Tyler remembers. It’s actually a little weird; Tyler’s Jamie is awkward and mumbling and hasn’t figured out how to deal with his body outside of hockey and definitely hasn’t noticed that he’s like, a ten. This Jamie—Tyler doesn’t know this well-groomed, handsome Jamie. This isn’t the Jamie Tyler had kissed yesterday. 

But it’s still Jamie. So, “So, give me the rundown,” Tyler says, as they pull out onto the highway. “Last four years, highlights, go. Have we won a Cup yet?”

Jamie laughs, a lot rueful. “No. No cup.”

“What about the Art Ross? Did you make that?”

Another weird expression. “Um, yeah. I did.”

“I fucking knew it!” Tyler crows, and punches Jamie in the shoulder. “I fucking knew you’d do it!”

“Hey, watch it,” Jamie warns, but he’s smiling again, shaking his head. “Uh, yeah. Then—um, team’s different, obviously, Ruff got fired—”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously,” Jamie confirms. “We had Hitchcock for a while, now Jim Montgomery’s there.”

“So I’m guessing our playoff luck hasn’t been great?”

Jamie winces. “I’m sorry,” he says. It’s comfortingly like what Tyler’s Jamie would have said. “I wish I could tell you something better.”

“We’ll get there,” Tyler tells him. He’s got nothing to base it on, but he’s still sure. If there’s one thing he knows he can do, it’s play hockey with Jamie. Jamie’s smile flashes over his face, still the sweet dimpled one that makes Tyler want to like, stand on his head to keep on his face.

Tyler looks outside. “Where are we going?”

“Your house,” Jamie says, like it’s obvious, which maybe it should be, except for how they’re going the wrong way.

“No we aren’t. Home is that way.” He gestures.

“You just got a new place,” Jamie tells him. “After you resigned.”

“I resigned?” Tyler does some math. “Oh shit, I must have. Was it a good deal?”

“It was. Took too long, but,” Jamie shrugs. “Eight years, 9.8 million, I think.” 

“Eight years?” Tyler repeats. He likes that. He must have done something right, if they want him for that long. “We’re going to play together ‘til we’re old and grey, huh?”

That gets another grin out of Jamie. “Like you’re ever going to let yourself go grey,” he retorts.

“It would be a crime,” Tyler agrees.

“Oh!” Jamie sits up a little straighter. “Oh, also. You got another dog.”

“I did?” Tyler exclaims. He pulls out his phone from the pocket he’d put it in when they’d handed it to him with the rest of his shit—and there it is, his lockscreen, him and three dogs. “What’s their name?”

“Gerry. He’s almost two now.”

“He’s adorable,” Tyler decides, flipping through the photos. There’s a lot of them—of the dogs, obviously; Cash has gotten so  _big_ —and of everyone else—team members he recognizes and some he doesn’t, like the Russian guy—Radulov—and other friends.

And, Tyler can’t help but notice. A lot of Jamie. Him and Jamie and some of the team at a basketball game. Jamie at a house Tyler doesn’t recognize, covered in dogs. Jamie apparently mid-stealing Tyler’s phone, because he’s mainly just a blur. Jamie unaware, cooking something in a kitchen, his profile to the camera.

He shoots another look at Jamie. Go Future him. Or, Present him? He’s not sure. But still, well done, nailing that down. And hopefully nailing that in general. Four years. He must have kept Jamie happy for four years, fuck. That’s—something.

“Hey, no screens,” Jamie says, interrupting that nice little rabbit hole Tyler was going down. He only remembers the once; the doctor said that familiar things would help jog his memory so maybe Tyler can use that to convince Jamie to fuck him when they get home? He thinks it would do a lot for his memory. And also, his life. “Put that away.”

“Yes sir,” Tyler turns it off. Watches Jamie’s reaction at that, but there’s no blush, so either that’s not a thing they’re into in bed or Jamie’s so used to it he doesn’t react. It bears more investigation—given how much Jamie’s responsible captain thing gets him going, he sort of assumed that would be a thing they’d be into, but he figures by now they’ve perfected sex, generally.

“You need to take—”

“I will. My head barely hurts anymore.” It’s a little bit of a lie, and maybe he’s still feeling sort of nauseous, but whatever. Jamie still gives him a look like he’s onto Tyler. Jamie always could tell when he was bullshitting. “Anyway. Where’s Jordie? Have you two managed to sever your Siamese twin thing?”

Jamie’s hands shift on the wheel, and he makes a motion like he’d be ducking his head if he wasn’t driving. “He, um. Got traded. He’s in Montreal now.”

“Oh, shit.” Tyler puts a hand on Jamie’s forearm. “Are you okay?”

“Am I?” Jamie laughs again, shakes his head. “Yeah—I mean, it wasn’t great when it happened, but it was almost two years ago now. I’m okay.”

“Who else is gone?” Tyler asks, and they take up the rest of the ride listing off all the players who have moved.

Tyler doesn’t recognize the house at all—it’s big, as big as his house—his old house, he guesses. Jamie lets them in with his own key, then there’s the clicking of paws and Tyler kneels down to nearly get bowled over by three dogs.

“Oh, yes, you’re happy daddy’s home, aren’t you?” he coos. Marshall’s older, and Cash is bigger, and Gerry is apparently still young and excited, and they’re all licking at his face and this at least feels familiar.

He looks up at once point—Jamie’s grinning down at him, rubbing his hands over Cash’s ears. Those dimples are as sweet as Tyler remembers.

“You should lie down,” is all Jamie says, though. “I can make you something to eat, then leave you to it?”

“You’re leaving?” Tyler asks, surprised enough to stand up. He’d thought—Jamie had a key. Four years was a long time—Tyler didn’t have like, a lot of experience here, but it felt like enough time that moving in would be a possibility. Maybe Jamie didn’t want to move in with him?  

“Yeah? Unless there’s something else you need.”

“I thought…” Those pictures made Tyler think that they were living some sickeningly domestic sort of life, the sort of thing he’d always laugh at friends for except seemed pretty sick if he was doing it with Jamie. The sort of things he’d started picturing this last season—well, what he remembered as this last season—when the initial ‘wow I want to jump his bones for that goal’ had zoomed past ‘I always want to jump his bones’ and right into butterflies in the stomach and ‘I want to jump his bones and then make breakfast together and cuddle with the dogs together and like, pay taxes together.’ “You don’t stay over?”

“I thought I’d give you your space?” Jamie says, sounding hesitant now. “I mean, I can stay if you want? I just thought you’d like, want to sleep or something? And I’ve…”

He trails off, but right, he just played a full hockey game then waited around for Tyler, he’s probably exhausted and needs to eat and all that shit, and doesn’t want to bother Tyler with that. That makes sense. It’s bullshit, but it makes sense in a Jamie sort of way. “You can just stay here,” he suggests. “I don’t mind. I’ll probably just crash too.”

“I—yeah, if you want,” Jamie agrees.

“Good.” Tyler grins at him.

Jamie makes them some—dinner, it looks like, timing-wise?—moving around the kitchen easily. The kitchen looks like it’s used recently, maybe even often, which makes Tyler think Jamie spends a lot of time here; his Jamie isn’t much more of a cook than Tyler is, but he is usually the one who does something when they can’t bully Jordie into it.

Jamie bullies Tyler upstairs after that, the sort of quiet, mild-mannered but inexorable caretaking that tricked Tyler in the first place. He stops at the door to what must be the master.

“Get some sleep. Don’t look at screens,” he orders, and Tyler rolls his eyes but nods.

“Yes, captain,” he says. “Are you going to stay up longer?”

“Probably,” Jamie admits. “Call if you need anything.”

“Okay.” Then—then he really can’t help it. He’s still kind of freaked, but at least as far as he can tell, Present Him got his life together pretty well. The rest of it will come in time. And Jamie’s here, so Tyler sort of feels like he skipped all the hard talking parts and jumped right from the first good stuff to the easy parts. And it’s been a weird, shitty day—or four years? He doesn’t know. But he gets this, so “Good night,” he says, and leans in to kiss Jamie. 

Jamie jerks away. “What?”

“What?” Tyler sways back. “What are you doing?”

“What are you doing?” Jamie’s voice is getting louder, and he takes a step back from Tyler. “What are you—Tyler!”

“I’m—” Something is very wrong here. For the first time, it occurs to Tyler. “Are we—are we  _not_ dating?”

“No!” It comes out high-pitched, even for Jamie. “No, we’re not—you thought we were?”

“…yeah?” Tyler says. “I thought—I mean, I remember us hooking up, in that hotel room in New York…”

Jamie’s very pale. “Well, we aren’t,” he says, like a period. Like that’s clear. He’s got two bright red spots on either cheek, and his eyes are a little panicked, like they get when someone asks him a question on camera he doesn’t know how to deal with. “Okay? Now I’m going to bed.” He starts walking backwards, eying Tyler like he’s going to jump him again. “Get sleep. No screens,” he adds, then he does something that could be called scurrying if someone as big as him could scurry into a room down the hall.

Tyler stares after him, dumbfounded.

///

“Are me and Bennie seriously not dating?” Tyler asks into the phone.

“Hi, Brownie, yes I’m fine I’m sorry for worrying you and relying on Jamie to keep you updated about how your best friend forgot the last four years of your life,” Brownie drawls.

Tyler shrugs. He’s walking around his room, trying to figure the space out. It’s a cool room—a big bed, pictures of his family and the dogs around, clothes he doesn’t recognize as his but are pretty sick in the closet. But it’s definitely a one person room, not a two person room. Even though there are some Stars t-shirts that look stretched out in a way he doesn’t think he’d make them.

“Yeah, all that,” Tyler agrees. “But—we aren’t?”

“Not as far as I know,” Brownie tells him. At least from just his voice, at least it doesn’t seem like he changed. “Should you be on your phone, bro? Bennie said you had a concussion—”

“I’m not texting, am I? It’s fine.” Tyler hadn’t looked at his screen or all the text messages other than to call Brownie’s number mostly from memory. “We seriously aren’t? What—but I—you know how I feel about him,” Tyler fills in, because Brownie very much does.

“I know how you felt about him,” Brownie corrects, a little gently. “That was four years ago, dude. You were all up his ass—not literally, despite your best efforts—then, I don’t know, you still were but it was different. You never told me why.”

“Did I tell you about New York?”

“Um.” Brownie hums, clearly thinking about it. Tyler takes another walk around the room. “I got a bunch of eggplant emojis, I think? It was four years ago, I don’t remember everything.”

“Shit.” Tyler flops back on the bed. “I don’t get it, bro. I am so fucking into him, and he’s even hotter now. Like, the hair? Damn. And he’s still…” He’s still so very clearly Jamie, who jumped very quickly to near the top of Tyler’s favorite people, sneaking in just below his dogs and his family and Brownie.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Brownie tells him. “You’re definitely still bros, if that helps? Like, you still talk about him all the fucking time.”

At least that hasn’t changed. The door creaks—Tyler half hopes it’s Jamie coming in to tell him he’s wrong, but instead it’s Gerry, which is not necessarily a downgrade.

“Hey, boy,” he murmurs, and Gerry jumps up onto the bed to sprawl over Tyler’s legs. “Okay then. Tell me about you,” he tells Brownie. He needs to get caught up somehow.

///

Clearly, Tyler decides in the morning, when he wakes up and goes downstairs and Jamie is in the kitchen making them eggs with a tension in his shoulders that only dissipates when Tyler doesn’t try to kiss him again, something got fucked up somewhere.

He’d gone through all of the night in New York last night—the two of them lying on Tyler’s bed watching game tape, how it had drifted later and Jamie still hadn’t left and didn’t look like he meant to, how good he had looked sprawled over Tyler’s bed, laughing and relaxed for once, with just Tyler. It hadn’t been different from any other moment except for how Tyler had felt brave then, except for how it had felt like it couldn’t go wrong, that he couldn’t mess up him and Jamie, and so he had leaned over and kissed Jamie and Jamie had smiled, shy and disbelieving, into his mouth, then kissed him back like it was as natural as breathing.

And the sex had been good, Tyler was sure of it. He was generally pretty sure of his abilities in bed, and Jamie hadn’t exactly been vocal but Tyler knew how to read him, and he hadn’t been sure what to expect from Jamie but he should have known that Jamie would know how to read his body off the ice too. And then—Jamie hadn’t left after, either; well he’d fallen asleep almost immediately and Tyler hadn’t wanted to leave so he hadn’t. Tyler knows he woke up with Jamie sprawled mostly on top of him, which made it a little hard to breathe and a lot warm but also Tyler had looked down at Jamie’s head on his chest and known this was it for him. Sure, they hadn’t had time to talk after that—Tyler’s alarm had gone off and Jamie had to run back to his room for clothes before anyone saw them to chirp them and then there had been pre-game stuff that didn’t leave them any time—but Tyler knew they were going to talk about it after, once they won the game, and he was like, ninety-nine percent sure they were on the same page.

But now…something got fucked up, because Jamie is in his kitchen but he’s not smiling because he is still, apparently, incapable of doing anything between total blank face and showing every emotion he’s feeling.

“Sleep okay?” Jamie asks, sliding a plate of eggs across the table to Tyler. “Feeling any better?”

“Yeah and yeah,” Tyler tells him. He takes the eggs, searches around for some forks. “Don’t remember anything, still.”

Jamie’s face twitches at that. “The doctor said it could take a while,” he points out though. “Don’t push it. Don’t—”

“I don’t even know how I’d push it,” Tyler retorts. “I’m already shitty at puzzles, doing more won’t help.” Jamie snorts.

“Well, good. Don’t. Now I’ve got to get to practice—are you feeling well enough to come in, see everyone?”

“I thought I wasn’t supposed to be pushing it,” Tyler teases

“I’m not saying you skate,” Jamie replies. “I just know the guys would like to see you, and the trainers want to check in on you.”

Tyler pauses. “I won’t know most of them,” he points out. From what Jamie was saying, that’s what it sounded like at least.

Jamie shrugs. “They’d still like to see you. And maybe it’ll jog something.” He smiles at Tyler. “If they’re mean you can tell on them to me.”

“Psh, they all love me,” Tyler retorts. “Do you know how many texts I’ve gotten?”

“Have you been checking your phone?” Jamie demands, and Tyler rolls his eyes.

It’s still easy, is the thing. Jamie’s still Jamie, if a little more solid, a little more confident. He still gives Tyler shit, still takes it with a chuckle; still seems to know when Tyler needs a boost and when he needs to chatter a little. If Jamie’s freaked that Tyler thinks it’s four years ago, he’s not showing it at all—though that might be because he knows Tyler needs him not to, which isn’t ideal. Tyler’s seen the other side of that, when Jamie stops having to be the captain and can freak the fuck out like he wants to, and he likes being on that side better. He likes that Jamie can—could?—have that freedom with him.

But he doesn’t know fucking anything now, so he drives with Jamie to the rink, follows him into the locker room. Everyone’s clearly been warned—they’re as gentle with the noise as a bunch of hockey players can be, even as everyone is clamoring to reintroduce themselves to him.

Jamie shoves everyone away. “One at a time,” he orders, and laughs at the reaction that gets. “Segs will have time for all of you.”

“Yeah, there’s plenty of me to go around,” Tyler agrees, waggling his eyebrows. It gets a laugh.

It gets calmer after that. Rads, the Russian guy who had been in Tyler’s hospital room, shoves his way to the front; from the way he jokes with Jamie and carelessly manhandles Tyler they’re clearly close—linemates, Tyler gathers. The rest of them come in after—Spezza, who’s as much of a rock as always; a flock of new kids who clearly like Tyler but who he doesn’t remember; Val, who’s impossibly older and confident now, not a rookie anymore; on and on and Tyler gives up on remembering names and just fist bumps indiscriminately. Everyone seems excited to talk to him, and one of the rookies starts chattering about some game he just got, looking at Tyler like he expects Tyler to be proud of him for it.

“Okay, enough,” Jamie announces, just as Tyler’s head is starting to throb again. “Segs has had enough, and all you need to get on the ice.”

There are grumbles, but no protests. Jamie turns to Tyler. “You good?” he asks, quieter.

Tyler nods. “Gonna go see the trainers.”

“I can give you a ride home, too,” Jamie tells him. “Unless you’d rather someone else—”

Tyler can count on maybe one hand the number of times since coming to Dallas that he’d rather someone else other than Jamie. “I’ll wait for you,” he tells Jamie, and Jamie smiles, not quite surprised but pleased.

“I’ll see you after, then,” Jamie tells him, still with that little smile. Tyler nods to him, then waves to the rest of the room, then goes to find the trainers.

///

Tyler’s done with the trainers early, so he goes out to watch practice. It’s clearly a different team than the one he remembers, like a weird double-vision; he can see the team here and his team layered, with a few repeated people in Jamie, Spezz, Klinger, and Ritchie. It’s—it drives home what they’d said in the trainers’ room, that they just don’t know what’s happening with his memory. This isn’t his time, or he’s not the person he is, which is confusing enough without trying to figure all the rest of this out. What if he never remembers? What if he’s this four-years before person the whole time? He doesn’t know how to be the guy a rookie looks up to, fuck.

A puck hits the boards near him, hard; Tyler jumps and starts. Jamie’s looking at him, his eyebrows raised. Tyler grins, and Jamie makes an unconvinced face back before getting summoned back to the next drill.

And there’s that. Jamie. He needs to figure out what the fuck happened, because he’d figured that Jamie was one thing in his life he hadn’t fucked up. Jamie was too solid for that, they were too good for that. He’d pictured four years later, they’d be that couple that he always laughed at, not boring because fuck that, he wouldn’t let them be boring, but like, solid. He’d imagined coaxing Jamie out for nights out and nights in watching TV on the couch with beers and the dogs, and really great sex, and like wandering around Toronto with Jamie and having Jamie take him to BC and all that shit. In his heart of hearts, that he didn’t even tell Brownie about, maybe he’d imagined, like, a wedding—probably in BC because Jamie cared more about shit like that than Tyler did, with the dogs as joint ring-bearers and Jordie and Brownie pretending not to cry next to them at the altar and how Jamie would look at Tyler, like he always had, like Tyler was good and everything he needed to be.

And now…Tyler watches Jamie skate around the ice, the combination of bullying and encouraging he always is, but it looks like he’s grown into it more, is less shy about dealing with everyone. Now there’s none of that, not for Present Tyler. And that’s not okay.

Tyler must have fucked it up. It’s not as self-deprecating a conclusion as it sounds—it’s just logic. There’s Tyler’s whole history of fucking up, but also, they’re still clearly bros, still great friends, and if Jamie had fucked it up he’d have gone into a self-blaming guilt spiral and probably been too mad at himself to ever talk to Tyler again, let alone be this chill with him. But if Tyler had fucked it up, than Jamie would have found a way to make it his fault anyway, but the guilt spiral would have been less, and they could still have been bros. They’re still bros, ergo, ipso facto, all that shit—Tyler must have done something.

He just doesn’t know what.

Later that day, when Jamie’s dropped him back off at his house and went to his own for a pre-game nap, Tyler gets started on that mystery. He might not be able to do anything about the rest of the four-year gap, might not be able to work his way back onto the ice and into the person he is now, but he can at least figure out what went wrong.

“Hi, mom,” he says to the one person who might know more about his mental state than Brownie.

“Tyler,” she says, and she at least sounds the same, says his name the same. It’s like letting out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, to hear that one forever constant. “How are you feeling, baby?”

“I’m fine. Except for how I can’t remember anything past 2015.”

“Tyler,” she says, patient, and Tyler sighs.

“It sucks. I can’t remember anything and everything’s changed and I don’t know—anything, anymore.” It comes out in a rush, and Tyler blinks hard at the kitchen counter, so that he doesn’t do something stupid like cry. Like he can tell, Marshall wanders over, noses against Tyler’s leg. “And I don’t know what to do about it, or how to fix it, and I can’t even play and—”

“Breathe,” she interrupts, and Tyler does. “I know you don’t tell your mother everything about what you get up to, but I can tell you this—you’re still you. You’re still my baby boy.”

“You’d always say that, though.”

“Because it’s always true.” Tyler smiles despite himself. He scratches at Marshall’s ears, then that summons the other two, who come over to get some attention. It’s hard not to be smiling at that. “You grew up into a good man, Tyler, in 2015 and 2019. What can I tell you to catch you up?”

“Um.” He can’t say all of it—that it seems insane, that he wears an A now, that anyone would trust him with that; that anyone wanted him for eight more years, that; that he doesn’t entirely recognize his taste in clothes or beer. That the person he sees in the mirror looks more like a cousin or something than him, new tattoos and facial hard and just—everything different. But he can say, “What happened with me and Jamie?”

“What do you mean?” she asks. “He’s been texting me updates about you since the hit, so you didn’t have to use a screen. Did you get into a fight?”

“Uh, no. But.” How to say this to his mom? What did he tell her? What would he have told her? Tenses are a bitch right now. “Did—like, back when I was me—or, like, four years ago for you—did I say anything?”

“Not that I remember,” she says. Then she pauses. “Well, no. I guess it was about four years ago, you said that you had ruined things with him for good, you were going a little crazy. But then it all seemed to settle down.”

That tracks. “I didn’t say how, though?” he asks, and he can hear her move, probably shaking her head.

“No, I’m sorry. You know what you could do, though?” she adds, and Tyler unfortunately knows what she’s going to say before she says it. “Ask Jamie.”

“I can’t.” He doesn’t know if he can take it, hearing Jamie tell him—very politely, probably very nicely—how he fucked up so badly that Jamie didn’t want him anymore. What he did that even Jamie would stop looking at him like he was amazing. Maybe past him could take it, but this Tyler can’t.

His mom, because she’s the best, doesn’t push. “Well, you’ll figure it out. And you’ll remember.”

“How do you know?” he asks. It’s weaker, more pleading than he’d want it to be.

He can hear the smile in her voice. “Because I believe in you,” she tells him, and Tyler hadn’t known how much he needed to hear that.

He gets off the phone with his mom half an hour later. He feels much better—he should have called his mom immediately—but it didn’t actually solve anything.

Clearly, he didn’t talk about it—which doesn’t bode well for whatever he did, because there’s not much he doesn’t talk about. But that means it’s time to switch tactics.

He steels himself to look at a screen, though it’s not too bad anymore. Looks at a schedule, then another number.

“Hey, Segs! Feeling okay?” Jordie asks, as soon as he picks up. “Don’t go sneaking screen time, now.”

“What are you going to do, tattle on me?” Tyler retorts immediately.

Jordie laughs. “Sure I will. Chubbs would be on my ass if I didn’t, and he’s worried enough about you.”

“Oh.” Tyler’d known that, but he hadn’t  _known_ that. “Well, he just wants to get passed to, get those points for the—” he stops. Right. That race was years ago, and Jamie had won it. “He just wants his two points,” Tyler finishes.

“Yeah, sure, that’s definitely why he’s fussing over you,” Jordie drawls. “Why are you risking his wrath, anyway?”

“He’s at home napping, he can’t know.” Tyler hopes not, at least. Jamie has an irritating, amazing habit of knowing his bullshit. Or he did.

“But if he did, he’d give you his disappointed face, and we all know how much you hate that.” 

“Fuck off,” Tyler snaps, because it’s very true. He’d do a lot to never see Jamie’s disappointed face.

“Sure,” Jordie agrees, too easily. “But just because you think you’re a kid again.”

“Twenty-three is not a kid,” Tyler informs him, and Jordie snorts.

“God, I’d forgotten how young you were.”

“Whatever, old man, how your knees feeling?” Tyler retorts. Jordie huffs out a breath.

“Truce. What’s up, though?”

Tyler doesn’t see a point in denying it. “I have some questions. About what happened, in the last four years.”

“Ask—”

“Stuff I can’t ask Jamie about,” Tyler interrupts.

Jordie sighs. “Yeah, I figured.” Unlike everyone Tyler’s talked to so far, he sounds the sort of on edge that means that he knows what happened, or at least that something did—that there is something to ask about.

“What happened?” Tyler demands. “You know what happened, in New York?”

“Yeah.” Jordie sounds wary now. But at least someone’s acknowledging it; making sure Tyler didn’t just make it up, or it wasn’t part of his brain damage.

“That’s like, the last thing I remember, other than the game. How did I—”

“Don’t.”

“No, what happened?” Tyler insists. “It was—we were good, and it was awesome, and now everything’s—”

“Let it go, Tyler,” Jordie cuts him off, and it’s the use of his real name that brings Tyler up short. “Don’t push on this one.”

“Why not?” Tyler demands. “Something happened, and it—”

“Because it really fucked Jamie up, and I don’t want you to do that to him again,” Jordie snaps. “You might not remember, I don’t know everything, but it not working out…I mean it made for some great hockey but a miserable brother, and you shouldn’t bring that up again.”

Tyler takes his hand off of Gerry’s fur, just in case he does something stupid. “I don’t want to mess anything up. With Jamie least of all.” Too late for that, though. Even with Jamie.

“I know,” Jordie replies, and he sounds like he really does. “But I also know my brother, and what he looks like with a broken heart, eh? That’s not something I like. So—I know something happened but Jamie didn’t give me the details and neither did you, I just know that there were a few weeks where you didn’t come by and you and Jamie didn’t really look at each other off the ice, and then you started to again, and you got back to your friendship and everyone seemed all right except for how you pulled back on the flirting a little bit.”

“So it was right after New York?” Tyler asks. He didn’t even get some time dating, some time with Jamie? He fucked it up right away?

“Don’t,” Jordie warns. “I’ve got to go. I’m glad you’re okay, Seggy. And I hope you remember soon.”

“I can still kick Habs ass even if I don’t,” Tyler throws at him, and Jordie laughs and hangs up.

Tyler stares at his phone until the screen goes dark, and Cash starts pushing at his leg in worry. He couldn’t even make it a day without messing up with Jamie? Of fucking course.

///

The trainers had warned against going to the game tonight—too much stimuli, they’d said—so Tyler stays home and turns the game on TV.

It’s a good game, which hurts in a way Tyler doesn’t like. He always wants his team to do well. Even without him. Even a team he doesn’t quite recognize. Even with a weird sort of jealousy that Spezza is centering Jamie.

Spezza’s wearing an A too, him and Klinger, and—the announcer points out that Spezz is just standing in for Tyler, and that’s…

His head is just starting to hurt from the screen when the game ends, and he’s turning it off when the post-games come on and Jamie’s apparently been tapped. Tyler can’t turn it off now.

He looks—Tyler’s Jamie, faced with the media, was stuttering and quiet and didn’t know where to look; Tyler remembers their interviews together, how he’d thrown Jamie the cues and Jamie had taken them with a grateful smile. How they’d made each other better. How Jamie had needed him.

This Jamie—well, he’s still not really saying anything, and he still looks a little deer in headlights, but a lot of that is those eyes that always look a little surprised. But he’s laughing and smiling and doesn’t look like Tyler remembers him looking, a little cornered. He looks good, sweaty and coming off a win.

“So how was it playing without Seguin?” someone in the scrum asks. “After his injury last game?”

“Well, you know,” Jamie starts, his voice soft enough that the mics swing closer to pick it up. “Spezza’s great, and he’s really stepping it up on the top line.” Tyler buries the instinctive irritation. He knows that’s what Jamie has to say, and it’s even true. But he still hates it.

“So you don’t miss Tyler?” someone asks, and Jamie scoffs.

“Well, um. There’s nothing like playing with Segs,” Jamie says, and Tyler watches his lips curve into a little smile, like it’s just for Tyler. “So, um. I always miss him when he’s out. But, uh, we don’t, like, want to push him too hard, and his health is more important. He’ll be a big part of us getting to the playoffs for sure, and we don’t want to mess with that.”

It’s nothing Tyler hasn’t heard Jamie say before, though every time it thrills in him, that Jamie really feels that—and he does because Jamie doesn’t know how to lie. But he’s still saying it in the same way he did that Tyler thinks is normal, like whatever Jordie said fucked him up didn’t change anything. And if it didn’t change anything, then maybe he still—

 _Come to mine when you’re done_ , Tyler texts. He shuts off the TV, so his head won’t hurt when Jamie gets here.

The text comes in fifteen minutes later, after Jamie’s presumably done with the media and maybe showered.  _B there in 45. Don’t look at screens_

 _How else was I supposed to hear how much you missed me?_ Tyler retorts. Then he gets up, and goes to his bathroom.

The face in the mirror is still disconcerting—it’s not very different, but it’s different enough that it throws him off, his hair cut, his facial hair. It’s like looking into one of those funhouse mirrors, this Tyler who isn’t him, or he isn’t this Tyler. He deals with his beard as best as he can, runs some gel into his hair, then goes to look for a tighter shirt.

When he turns around out of his closet, he sees Marshall there, tilting his head to look at him. “What do you think?” Tyler asks. “Good enough to get over four years of fuck up?”

Marshall barks. Tyler decides that’s a yes.

Jamie knocks on the door, then opens it with his key. “Segs?” he calls, and Tyler calls back,

“Hey, Bennie!” from the kitchen, as he hears two sets of dog paws clatter towards the door. Marshall looks up from where he’s sitting on the floor of the dining room, but apparently decides he’s too busy to move.

There are the sounds of Jamie greeting the dogs; Tyler can’t make out the words Jamie uses but he can hear the tone, warm and affectionate. No one can love Tyler’s dogs that much and not care about Tyler, he figures. It’s not possible. Not even for Jamie.

Then there’s the pound of human feet—Jamie’s always had a heavy tread—and Tyler turns away from the stove to see Jamie standing in the doorway, smiling a little—and, Tyler thinks, darting his eyes up to Tyler’s face. Score one for Present Tyler and his commitment to keeping up their body.

“Hey,” Jamie says, and there’s something—hopeful, maybe, in his voice. “Are you cooking? Does that mean—”

“Nothing yet,” Tyler replies, poking maybe a little harder than necessary at the pasta on the stove. “I can cook now, though—or, I could cook then?”

“You never did, though,” Jamie points out. “I do remember how much you were in our apartment, Segs.”

Tyler turns around. Jamie’s perched at the counter now, looking frankly edible in his suit. He’s definitely gotten better tailoring to go along with his new haircut, and Tyler wants to like, give whoever figured that out a tip and maybe a medal. “Maybe that was just for the pleasure of your company,” he suggests though, with his flirtiest smile.

 Jamie’s forehead crinkles, like he’s confused. “You said it was for the food yourself,” he points out, slowly.

Tyler shrugs. “I say a lot of shit.”

“You do,” Jamie agrees, but he’s smiling again, fond. Tyler resists the urge to wriggle like Cash does when he’s pet. “Still, what are you doing cooking?”

“Can’t I want to make the game winner some food for him to come home to?” Tyler asks.

Jamie snorts. “Yeah, you’d be a great WAG.”

“Hey, I would be a kickass WAG, they wouldn’t know what hit them.” Tyler grins. “Neither would you.”

“Me?”

“Well who else would I attach myself to?” Tyler asks. “Bish couldn’t handle me, and even if Rads was over the divorce, he’s too Russian.”

“What’s wrong with Russian?”

“I don’t like vodka,” Tyler informs him. He smirks at Jamie. “I prefer a good Canadian whiskey.”

Jamie’s cheeks go red, but he just shakes his head. “You at twenty-three liked shitty beer and tequila,” he informs Tyler. “Not that that’s changed much.”

“That’s not what my fridge says,” Tyler retorts. “There’s plenty of craft beer there.”

Jamie goes a little redder. “Yeah, most of that’s mine. You’re still not that into it.”

“Good to know I haven’t changed that much,” Tyler tells him. “Have you changed so much you don’t want food?”

“Definitely not,” Jamie laughs. “What are you making me?”

“Pasta and salmon,” Tyler informs him, and Jamie laughs again. “What?”

“You spent a really long time figuring out how to make things other than that,” Jamie tells him. “It made you feel more grown up. So now that you’re going back to it…”

Tyler shrugs. “Hey, a classic’s a classic.” He gives Jamie another flirty smile. “Some things never change.”

Jamie gets another one of those confused looks, but he doesn’t like, run away, so Tyler counts it as another win. Screw whatever Present him did, however he fucked this up, this can still be the same.

He keeps it going like that all of dinner, throwing his best moves at Jamie. Jamie’s gotten a little bit better at hiding his emotions, but not that much better; he stills flushes obviously and Tyler definitely catches him looking when Tyler stretches right, which is good news all around.

They end up on the couch watching highlights, which Jamie allows as long as Tyler promises just to listen. “Why would I look at a screen when I have my own game winner here?” Tyler asks, and Jamie bites at his lip and looks away.

Still, just listening gets boring, fast, and Tyler has to amuse himself somehow. He starts with shifting to kick his feet into Jamie’s lap. Jamie just shifts a little to accommodate them, like that’s normal. Then that doesn’t work, so he gets up to let the dogs out, and then when he comes back he sits down, closer to Jamie than the couch necessitates already, and starts edging closer, into Jamie’s space.

Jamie doesn’t quite object; he definitely notices—his body shifts at first to accommodate this too, but then when Tyler keeps going he starts getting tenser and tenser, until finally Tyler’s thigh is pressed against his and Jamie puts a hand on his knee, firm and big and Tyler shivers, throws caution to the wind because who needs that shit, and shifts so he can straddle Jamie on the couch.

Jamie definitely freezes. “What are you doing, Segs?” he demands. His hands are clenched in the couch cushion, and his eyes are huge. “I told you, we aren’t—”

“Well, we should be,” Tyler tells him. “I want you, you want me, I don’t see a problem here, bro.”

“I—” Jamie swallows. “That’s not what it is, okay? You’d know if you remembered.” He glances sideways, like he’d like to escape, but Tyler has him pinned, which he might feel worse about if he didn’t know Jamie wanted this, or he had, or he would, or something.

“Well I don’t remember, but I remember New York.” Tyler shifts and Jamie’s lap, to drive the point home. “You wanted me then, I know you did. I don’t know what I did to fuck it up, but you still want me, so—”

“That’s not the problem,” Jamie gets out, from between gritted teeth. He tilts his head back, like looking at Tyler is making everything harder. It gives Tyler a good view of his neck, of the very bitable muscles there. “We just—leave it until you’re you again, and then—”

“I am me!” Tyler snaps. He might not be the him Jamie knows, the him who owns this house and wears an A and can fucking cook, but “I am me, and I can’t remember but who fucking cares, I know I want this and—”

“You don’t,” Jamie snaps back, his head jerking upright. He’s got a little bit of his on-ice aggression on now, the sort that gets his back up and makes him power through anything to get to goal. “You don’t want this, so—get off of me,” he growls, and Tyler thinks he means it enough that he does. Jamie surges to his feet immediately, and Tyler follows him up.

“Don’t be stupid, of course I do. What the hell did I do to make you think—”

“You said so,” Jamie turns to face. His shoulders are up like he’s ready to block a punch. “After New York, if you really want to know what happened.  You said that it was fun but that we shouldn’t do it again, that it was best we were just bros. Then like, the next day you hooked up with someone else, when we were all at a bar and you knew I’d see. So don’t—I don’t know if you do want me in whatever time you remember, but you definitely don’t want me now.”

Tyler’s mouth opens, shuts. “That’s bullshit.”

“It’s what happened,” Jamie growls. He’s heading towards the door now. “And I was—I got there, we are bros, like you wanted, it’s fine. I didn’t—I’m fine, you just can’t do—this.”

He’s nearly back into the entranceway when Tyler starts to scramble after him. “No, it is bullshit,” Tyler tells him. “You—I want you, so much. God, Jamie, do you know what you look like? What you make me—”

“Maybe with what you remember. But not now.” Jamie swallows. He’s still in his suit, and he looks like he’s in pain, like he did after they were eliminated from the playoffs but they still had to fight for his Art Ross. “And then you’re going to remember and not want me anymore, and I…” he shakes his head. “We’re good like we are, Segs, I promise.”

“No, that’s bullshit,” Tyler says again. He doesn’t care what’s happened in the last four years, he knows himself. And—Jamie’s still in every picture, Tyler still keeps Jamie’s beer in his fridge and his shirts in his closet. He still has to be that much the same. “There is not a world where I am not in—where I’m not really fucking into you, Jamie.”

“There is, and it’s this one,” Jamie insists. Usually, Tyler loves Jamie’s stubbornness, his utter immovability; now he really wishes it were a little more flexible. “Look, I can’t—”

“I’ll prove it to you,” Tyler decides. Jamie snorts.

“How? You don’t remember.”

“I’ll figure out a way.” Tyler grabs at Jamie’s wrists. This he can do. Jamie he’s been  _good_ at, since he first stepped foot in Dallas. He can’t have messed that up too. “I promise.”

“You won’t and that’s okay, Tyler,” Jamie replies. “You’re good. You’ve got—lots of stuff going on. You’re happy.”

“I will,” Tyler insists. He shakes Jamie’s arms. “You’re the most fucking important person in my life after like, my family and my dogs and Brownie, that doesn’t change.”

“You don’t remember that.”

“But I know it,” Tyler tells him, and holds on until Jamie pulls his hands away, his eyes looking a little big and panicked.

“I have to—I’ll see you tomorrow, Segs,” he says, shoving his shoes on. “Don’t—just worry about getting better, not about all of this. Once you remember you’ll get it.”

“I don’t see how,” Tyler snaps, but Jamie just shakes his head and goes.

///

The problem is—Tyler doesn’t really know how to prove it. He can talk to Jamie as much as he wants about all the, whatever, evidence—that Jamie is clearly inextricably interwoven with Tyler’s life, that his body is still very much on board with the ‘touch Jamie as much as possible and then jerk off a lot’ plan. When Tyler tries to confront him with that, at practice the next day when Tyler’s finally allowed to do some light work outs, Jamie just sticks firm to his whole ‘Tyler will understand when he remembers’ thing. Tyler hated the ‘you’ll understand when you’re older’ thing when he was a kid. He hates it even more now.

But at least it hasn’t seemed to scared Jamie away, really. Jamie still comes by every day, takes Tyler to the rink and then home; he walks the dog with Tyler and strictly monitors his recovery progress. Sometimes, if Tyler closes his eyes, it seems like what he remembers—then Tyler opens his eyes and sees Jamie’s new haircut or wardrobe, or Jamie references something from the last four years, or someone comes up to talk to him who he doesn’t know, or the world has changed in ways Tyler doesn’t get—apparently Facebook is evil now—and it all comes back.

Or rather, it doesn’t.

“Still nothing?” the doctor asks, shining a light in his eyes. Tyler shrugs.

“I don’t think so.” Sometimes, it feels like there are things on the tip of his tongue, or niggling at the back of his mind, but he can never bring it up. And he’s been trying. Not remembering is the only thing keeping him off the ice, at this point. And out of Jamie’s pants. Both of which he would totally go for if he could. “Is that bad?”

“It’s only been a week. It’s not entirely unusual.” The doctor writes something on Tyler’s chart anyway. “Any other problems? More nausea?”

“No.”

“Headaches? Nausea?”

“Not really, not for a while.” The doctor raises his eyebrows at him, like he’s suspicious—maybe he’s dealt with hockey players before. But he’s not really lying. Jamie’s been strict enough about getting him back on track.

“Well then.” The doctor looks at his chart. “I don’t see any reason to keep you off the ice, and I’ll tell your team that.”

“Really?” Tyler grins at him.

“Really.” He grins back. “Just be careful and don’t push it, and if anything feels wrong, tell a trainer.”

“Yes sir.”

“Anything,” he repeats firmly, and Tyler nods earnestly. He doesn’t necessarily do earnest well, but he can try.

“Anything,” he agrees. “Is that—will I be travelling with the team later?” They were about to head out on a roadie, and Tyler hadn’t been looking forward to staying home for that. Staying home in general sucked, and now Tyler didn’t really remember most of the non-team people who were apparently his friends. He wouldn’t know what to do in this house that isn’t really his for a week, when all the people he knows are different and he’s got a whole chores list that he doesn’t recognize or like, understand enough to do well. And he has a feeling if Jamie goes away for a week he’ll really never be convinced.

“That’s up to the team. But there’s no medical reason not to.”

“Awesome!” The doctor rolls his eyes a little, but smiles back.

Tyler’s bouncing when Jamie comes into the locker room, well after the rest of the team, but by his smile he already knew. 

“Coach told you?”

“Yeah,” Jamie says, but his dimples are deep in his cheeks. “I guess we’ll have to put up with your ass on the roadie.”

“Yeah?” One of the new guys—Miro—says, leaning over to get a hold of the conversation. “Segs is coming with us?”

“Hell yeah I am,” Tyler tells him, and fist bumps because that feels appropriate. Miro doesn’t hesitate, which must mean it’s right.

“Awesome. We can go to that bar in Nashville, the one you showed us, what was—” the kid cuts off, looks awkwardly at Tyler. “Right. We can ask someone else.”

“Segs shouldn’t be drinking anyway,” Jamie inserts. Tyler knows it’s just him trying to stop the awkward, but Tyler still bristles. Too many people have told him shit like that, and he’s better, he’s not going to be an idiot, he can do that.

“There are reasons to go to a bar other than drinking,” Tyler throws at Jamie, and Jamie gives Tyler a confused look for a second, then something seems to click.

“I didn’t mean—I mean, you knew that too,” Jamie mutters.

“And should you even be messing with that?” Another kid—Esa asks, throwing an arm around Tyler. “You don’t know, your tastes might have changed. Maybe you’ll hook up with someone that you’ll regret.”

“I remember your taste at this age,” Ritchie puts in. “That’s a real risk.”

Tyler looks at Jamie. He’s stripping off his gear, and it’s left him in his pads over his under armor and he’s probably gross and sweaty from practice but Tyler’s got that ingrained in him as  _success_  and  _hot_. That can’t have changed.

“I doubt it,” he says. Jamie looks up—his cheeks are red—and then looks back down.

“Anyway,” Tyler goes on. “Maybe this will jog some memories.”

“Roadie’s a roadie,” Spezza agrees, walking by. 

That’s the long and short of it—the plane’s basically the same. When Tyler takes a seat next to Jamie, no one seems surprised—Rads sits in the seat facing them on the table and immediately pulls out cards.

“We play,” he says, and it sounds like a statement.

“I’m not letting you win just because I don’t remember the game,” Tyler warns him.

“You never win anyway, it’s okay,” Rads retorts. Tyler glances at Jamie. Jamie nods solemnly, but there’s a laugh in the corners of his eyes.

“Bullshit,” Tyler decides, and leans in. “Okay, how does this work?”

Rads explains—Tyler suspects he’s making it more complicated than it needs to be—and then deals.

“Am I always this good?” Tyler crows, half an hour later as he pulls in the pot—a whopping ten bucks.

“Cards don’t like me tonight,” Rads retorts, as he gathers up the cards. Jamie’s lips twitch, though he doesn’t look pleased about losing either.

“Yeah, sure, it’s just tonight,” Tyler agrees. “This never ever happens.”

“We’ll play poker next time,” Jamie tells Rads, patting his arm. “He doesn’t have a poker face, you can win at that.”

“Nah, that’s your game, isn’t it?” Tyler says, and kicks Jamie’s shin. “Those pretty eyes have to be good for something, eh?”

Jamie flushes, shakes his head a little. “I have to win my money back from you somehow,” he replies though, easy but not really responding to the flirting, and then moves to unbuckle his seatbelt.

“Jamie, don’t—” Tyler starts. He doesn’t want Jamie to go. He’ll stop flirting if that’ll get Jamie to stay.

Jamie shakes his head, then nods to where Bishop is sitting, his long legs stretched into the aisle. He’s staring at the seat in front of him a little blankly. “I’ve got to talk to Bish,” Jamie says, quietly.

“Had bad few games,” Rads puts in.

Right. Tyler nods, and his heart is totally not about to burst or anything. “Aye aye. Go be the good captain.”

“It’s not…” Jamie’s mumble trails off, and Tyler grins. His hand is on Jamie’s bicep, huh.

“Go on, I can win money off of you later.”

“Oh, screw you,” Jamie throws back at him, but he laughs as he gets up.

Tyler maybe watches him move down the aisle to where Bishop is sitting, drop into the seat across the aisle from him and lean over—apparently trying to fit two sets of legs their size into airplane seats would be too comical. It’s a good view, what’s Tyler going to say?

He keeps watching until they really start talking—Jamie giving Bishop that look, the one that caught Tyler in the beginning, that Jamie’s world started and ended with you and he’d fight through hell and back to get you where you needed to go. That look hasn’t changed. Tyler just wants it on him, but he always wants Jamie’s attention on him, that’s nothing new.

“So.” Tyler looks back at Rads, who’s watching him under dark, skeptical brows. “We going to talk about you and Bennie?”

“What?” Tyler asks. “What do you mean?”

Rads snorts. Tyler doesn’t know much about him—Tyler had looked him up and he’d been in Russia for most the parts of Tyler’s NHL career he can remember—but he’s already getting a sense of him, and how he rounds out Tyler and Jamie.

“I’m not idiot, Segs,” Rads tells him. “I know you do not remember, but I know you. Something up between you and Bennie. More than you not remember; you remember him. Not like with me, with rest of team.”

Tyler considers trying to put him off, but really, he doesn’t see the point. “Seriously, what do you mean?” he asks. “What do you think is different between us, now that I don’t remember?”

Something about his demand must make it clear this isn’t him deflecting; Rads’ eyebrows furrow as he hums. “You look at him different,” he concludes at last.

“Differently?” What does that mean?  Does he not—is Jamie  _right_? Could he have fallen out of love? That doesn’t make any sense—that can’t be true. He needs this part of him not to have changed. “How differently?”

Rads hums again. “You more obvious now,” he decides. “Is what I expect, when I come. Everyone say, Seguin and Benn, they weird about each other. Well, Zhenya say that, and Zhenya weird about his captain, so.” Rads shrugs, something ineffably Russian about the motion.

“But like, the emotion’s the same?” Tyler demands. Maybe an outside opinion will convince Jamie.

Rads tilts his head. It occurs to Tyler, too late, that maybe asking a Russian about this isn’t the best idea. “I think,” he says slowly. “That things complicated.”

“Great, so there’s a facebook status,” Tyler mutters, and Rads laughs.

“Is fine, you figure out. I never see Bennie stay mad at you long.”

“I am irresistible, it’s true,” Tyler agrees, smirking. Rads rolls his eyes and ruffles Tyler’s hair, an easy motion that somehow feels comfortable.

“You definitely something,” Rads tells him. “But—I need things fixed with you and Bennie, yes? Much as I like more passes for me, need my line together.”

“We’re good,” Tyler tells him. That he knows. That’s true through everything, through fights and Olympics and Tyler’s fuck ups and hip surgery some people were stupidly quiet about and scoring droughts and scoring runs. “We’re always good.”

“Then maybe you get him to relax?” Rads asks. “He so tense, since your concussion. Need to get better so he stop worry.”

“I’m not a miracle worker, I can’t stop Jamie from worrying.” Tyler nods up to where Jamie’s still talking to Bishop. Jamie worries about his team. It makes him a good captain, even if it’s occasionally annoyed Tyler. Jamie doesn’t normally make him feel the age difference necessarily—or not until Tyler felt twenty-three and Jamie is twenty-nine—but Jamie’s always felt…older. Responsible. Like if Tyler isn’t the person Jamie sees him as he’d let him down, and Tyler’ rather cut off his right arm than do that. Like Tyler wants that sort of stuff too, the grown-up sort of settling down stuff. Like Tyler’s already on his way there. Like he thinks Tyler could be there, which is—a lot of faith, really.

“Yes, but when you better, worry cut, like, in half,” Rads informs him. Tyler tries not to preen at that, at the confirmation of what he means to Jamie, but given Rads roll of his eyes, he doubts it worked. “Also, we need points, you need come back for that.”

That, Tyler gets. “Then we should get some points, eh,” he says, and Rads shakes his head and laughs again.

///

Tyler doesn’t end up playing in that game—he hates it but he gets it, he guesses; he doesn’t want to push anything—and they end up losing in a shoot out, which makes it even worse because Tyler’s not saying he could have won it, but he is saying that he might have made the difference.

Tyler fist bumps everyone on their way back off the ice, then takes one look around the locker room. It’s quiet—they’re getting down to crunch time when every point counts, and losing this one clearly stings—and Jamie’s in the sort of glowering quiet stage that means he feels like he should have done more even though he got a hand on two of their three goals.

Tyler’s the one getting looks, though—some of the rookies, but even Spezza shoots him a quick look, like they’re expecting something from him. Tyler’s not captain, though—he doesn’t know what they want from him. He didn’t even play. He would have, if he could have, but…

“Okay, let’s go out,” Klinger finally says, loud in the quiet room. “We can go to that bar Segs found last time.”

Spezza smiles at that, like he was waiting for it. “Yeah, good idea,” he agrees. “I think I have it somewhere in my google maps.”

It gets the room going a little, though Klinger throws a look at Tyler like he’s still a little unsure. Tyler—fuck, is he supposed to do something about it? What’s he supposed to do about that?

He probably shouldn’t—he shouldn’t drink for sure—but he trails along with the team to the bar. It’s a cool place, a little chill for his tastes, but he found it so he guesses his tastes have changed. It’s probably best with his head, anyway.

“You okay?” he asks, sliding into the booth next to Jamie and pushing a beer he’d got for him at him.

Jamie looks at it like he’s a little surprised it’s there, but his lips curve up. “What? Yeah.”

“That was a pretty goal, in the second.”

Jamie shrugs. “Not enough.”

“It was a pretty goal, you deserve a drink,” Tyler repeats. He looks around the table—some of the old guys, it looks like, though Tyler guesses he’s one of the older guys now too, or something. He still feels like he should be hanging out with the rookies and the younger guys around the bar, trying and mostly failing to chat up girls. “Right?”

“I got goal too, where my beer?” Rads asks.

Tyler snorts. “Yours wasn’t as pretty as Jamie’s.”

“You never think anyone’s goals are as pretty as Jamie’s,” Bishop points out.

“That’s because they aren’t,” Tyler tells him. It’s nice to hear. “I mean, I don’t remember most of them, but I’m sure that’s true.”

“And that fact that you’ve assisted on most of them…” Jamie asks, teasing.

“Well, there’s a reason they’re pretty,” Tyler throws back, and it gets a laugh out of Jamie.

The conversation moves on to things that Tyler doesn’t remember—Cowboys games, some new juice craze that Tyler thinks just sounds weird—but Tyler doesn’t move, just stays pressed closer than probably he needs to be against Jamie. Jamie doesn’t move away, though.

He seems tired, though—he doesn’t say much, not that that’s unusual, and he’s nursing his beer. Tyler elbows him, when the rest of the table gets caught in a debate about countertops, of all things.

“Hey. What was up in the locker room?” he asks. “Everyone was looking at me weird.”

“What? Oh.” Jamie shrugs. “You’re usually the one who says shit, gets the guys pumped back up.”

“Me?”

Jamie snorts. “Yeah, you. What, you think I’m any good at that? You’re the guy who knows how to say shit.” Jamie’s eyes are always so big and make everything seem so meaningful. “You’re my A for that.”

That ‘my’ goes right to Tyler’s dick, which he can handle, and his heart, which he can handle a little less. What he can’t handle at all is Jamie’s rueful little smile.

“But this is okay?” he asks. He didn’t know—he doesn’t know how to be that person, the one who’s an authority in the locker room. He didn’t know he was supposed to do that.

“This is fine.” Jamie shifts, and Tyler’s like, ninety percent sure that how it presses their thighs together is accidental. “You just work on remembering stuff and getting back in the line up, the rest of us can work on the rest of it.”

“I’m trying,” Tyler whines, and Jamie grins.

“I know it’s hard work, making your brain do anything.”

“Hey!” Tyler retorts, but Jamie’s relaxed a little. Good. This he knows how to do. He might not know the rest of it, but he can be good at Jamie at least.

He waits a beat, then, “Are you okay, though? That wasn’t a bad game. And I looked at the standings, we’re okay.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Jamie shrugs. He’s back to staring at the beer.

Tyler waits a beat, then, when it doesn’t seem like Jamie’s going on, smacks his thigh. “Then why are you so down?” he demands. He can’t imagine he’s started letting Jamie get away with shit like this. “We got a point.”

“Sure.” Jamie presses his lips together. “I just…I dunno. You forgetting—it makes me remember, like, what I promised you.”

“What you promised me?”

Jamie looks up. God, Tyler’s never figured out how a man so big and solid can look so vulnerable. It’s somehow worse now, with the haircut and the confidence and everything. “When you came, I said we’d prove them wrong, remember? I said we’d get you a Cup for here. And what have I gotten you?” Jamie’s big hands shift on the glass, like he’d consider squeezing it too hard. “Nothing.”

Which, no, that’s not going to stand. “Um, bro, I’ve got, like, a house and two more dogs and an eight year contract,” Tyler says. And a team that apparently thinks that he deserves responsibility or whatever. “Sure, it sucks not making playoffs.” And did it ever, the bitter aching pain of it, of knowing that you had to limp to the end of the season—“But that’s not, like—I must have thought it was worth sticking around for another eight years, eh?”

“I don’t know why,” Jamie mutters. “I didn’t—”

“I know why,” Tyler says, and his hand’s on Jamie’s forearm now, meaningful. Jamie glances up, quick and soft.

“Ty…” he says, his voice even quieter than usual.

“Look, we’re winning a Cup together,” Tyler says, a reckless promise, but it’s true. It’ll always be true. He knew that within a month of touching down in Dallas. “And if shit goes to hell, you’ve got Olympic gold and an Art Ross, I’ve got Worlds gold, that’s plenty of hardware.” Jamie’s smiling at him. Tyler squirms. It’s not that—he means that shit, and he’s sure he’s said it to Jamie before. “What?”

“That’s why you’re my guy for cheering up a room,” Jamie tells him, and his look is soft and proud and determined and Tyler wants to bottle it. He wants to deserve it, him, not whoever he will be. He wants to prove to Jamie that it’s his. “And I’ll get you that Cup.”

“I know we will,” Tyler agrees. He does. He believes in Jamie and he believes in them, even if Jamie doesn’t. Then he pauses, smirks. “And you know what would make that better?” he doesn’t wait for Jamie to keep talking. “Post Cup win blowjobs. They’re the best sort of blowjobs.”

Jamie rolls his eyes. “I’m sure if we do win, you won’t have a problem with that.”

“I wouldn’t, you’re right,” Tyler agrees. “But like, two Cup winners, that’s twice the—”

“Tyler.”  Jamie’s hand jerks away from his. “Don’t, please? Not tonight.”

“Why—”

Jamie mumbles something. Tyler nudges him. “Little louder, for those of us with human ears?”

But Jamie just shakes his head, and stands up. “I’m getting another drink. Anyone?” he asks the table. “Not you, Segs,” he adds, and Tyler takes his cue and starts to argue until Jamie heads to the bar. Even now, he somehow manages to take longer to get through a crowd than someone his size should.

It’s a few minutes later, after Tyler’s gotten caught in a discussion about today’s defense that he actually can contribute to, that his phone buzzes.

 _I told you not to mess with him_ , Jordie’s texted.

Tyler scowls at his phone.  _I’m not messing with him!_  He replies.  _I’m trying to make things right._

Then, because he has to—because it’s there, the part of him that’s still hurting, the part of him that can’t figure anything out, that can’t be who he needs to be here—he adds  _do you really think he doesn’t want me?_

The three dots of Jordie’s text last a long a time. Finally,  _I think you don’t know what you want_

That’s not a no. It’s definitely not a no.

He glances over to the bar—Jamie’s gotten caught up with some of the rookies, who he’s listening to, grinning in amusement. He looks—older. Which Tyler knew, but—it’s even more now. Tyler gets where Jordie’s coming from. They haven’t, like, talked about it, but it was clear then and it’s obvious now that Jamie wants something real, something adult. Tyler can give that to him, though. Or he’ll try. Present Tyler can, at least. Present Tyler’s got most of his shit together, even if now Tyler doesn’t understand how he got there.

///

Tyler’s allowed to practice the next day, before they head to Raleigh. He’s still in a no contact jersey, but it’s—he doesn’t know the systems or the drills, and he’s still figuring out most of the people he doesn’t know, but skating with Jamie feels like it always did. Or maybe it feels a little more like it did in the first few weeks, when the chemistry clicked but they were still working out the kinks, but same thing. It’s still hockey. It doesn’t make Tyler feel like he should be someone else.

He gets one in behind Bish at the end of practice off Jamie’s assist and cheers for himself, loudly, which gets a bunch of boos from his teammates but Jamie humors him, bumps into him for what must be the world’s gentlest celly, and it feels right. It’s where Tyler’s supposed to be, fuck whatever Jamie thinks about Cup wins, whatever anyone else thinks. He signed for eight more years and maybe less money than he could have had for this, for Jamie next to him and his boys around him, and it’s worth it. He looks up into Jamie’s grin, just an echo of the on-ice fierceness, and it’s definitely worth it.

In the hotel that night, there’s a knock on the door. Tyler half wonders if it’s Jamie—he’d been considering knocking on Jamie’s door, seeing if he could recreate the magic of their first, apparently only, night—but when he opens the door, it’s Spezza there instead.

“Oh, hey.”

Spezz chuckles. “Expecting someone else?”

“Really, Jason. What would your wife say?” Tyler asks. He steps aside to let him in.

“Cool it, hot shit,” Spezz tells him. “You’re not that pretty.”

“Say what you like.” Tyler winks. Spezz shakes his head, still laughing, as he leans against the desk.

“I’d forgotten what you were like at this age,” he says, but it’s more fond than not.

Tyler shrugs. “What’s up?”

“I just wanted to check in,” Spezz says. “This can’t be easy, and I know you don’t know many of us.”

Tyler needs to figure out how many more kids Spezz had in the last four years, because he’s even more a dad now than he was then. “I mean…it’s super weird.”

“I can’t imagine.” Spezz looks at him, patient. “Are you doing okay physically?”

“Is this a check up?” Tyler laughs. “Yeah, I’m fine. I mean, sometimes my head hurts a little, but it’s okay.”

“And—with everything else?”

“It’s weird,” Tyler says again. “I don’t remember shit, and there’s so much…” He shakes his head. “I don’t remember me, you know? Like, I didn’t know what to do with the dogs for the road trip until Jamie told me.”

“It’ll come back, right?”

“That’s what they say, but it’s been a week.”

Spezz smiles. “A week’s not that long.”

“Are you sure? Have you ever had to live without your memories for a week?” Tyler snaps, then he sighs. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. You get a pass for a while.”

“Sounds fun.” Tyler waggles his eyebrows.

“Tyler,” Spezza says, on a bit of a sigh. “Well, I just wanted to make sure you were doing okay, and to see if there’s anything we—the team—can help you with.”

“Jamie’s taking care of me.” Tyler tells him. “It’s not like there’s anything he doesn’t know about me.” Except for the most important parts, that Tyler needs to convince him of.

Spezza smiles, a little wry. “Well, if there’s anything Jamie can’t help you with, I’m here. And so are the boys—everyone wants to help, the kids are just worried. They love you, really.” Because Tyler’s not one of the kids anymore, right. Because he’s the sort of person rookies love, in like, an admiration way.

“Jamie’s doing fine,” Tyler retorts, a little defensive.

“I don’t doubt it.” Spezza holds up his hands. “Just wanted to make sure. You’ve got the whole team, even if you don’t remember most of them.” He pushes himself off the desk.

He’s leaving, but—he’s the closest thing to neutral Tyler’s going to get here; he’s known Tyler longer than he knows himself, sort of, and he’s not Jordie, who was here for most of it but is, at heart, defending Jamie first.

“Spezz,” Tyler says. Spezz pauses. “Can you—do you think what I felt about Jamie changed?”

Spezza raises his eyebrows. “What you feel about Jamie?” Tyler keeps looking at him. He’s not fooling himself that everyone didn’t know. Spezza sighs. “I don’t—you flirt with everyone, Tyler. It’s never been easy to figure out if Jamie was just one of your boys or if he was different.”

“Of course he’s different,” Tyler retorts. That’s obvious. He loves his boys, but Jamie’s Jamie. “That’s—like, how could he not be?”

“That’s between you two, I try to stay out of it.” Spezza looks at him, though, and the dad energy is really strong with him. “But it’s still the two of you, for what it’s worth. I mean, things changed, but…” he shrugs. “From what I’ve seen, you’d still stand on your head to make him smile.”

“I could do a kickass handstand,” Tyler tells him. Yes. He can—good. Spezza wouldn’t lie. He does still love Jamie. That’s still true.

“Now that’s settled,” Spezza straightens again. “I am going to go call my wife and my actual children. If you need anything, let me know.”

“Yes dad,” Tyler throws back. “Tell Julia that I still owe her puppy time.”

Spezza pauses with his hand on the doorknob. “Okay,” he says slowly, his tone a little off. “I’ll let her know.”

Then he shuts the door behind him, and Tyler flops down onto the bed for a second, before bouncing back up. He’s bored. He might not be supposed to really go out, but he can go make Jamie watch a movie with him or something.

///

Tyler doesn’t play in Raleigh, and then they’re back home and at least he’s back in his normal jersey, even if no one’s really checking him at full speed at all. Still, before the next game, he stares at his jersey for a second. It’s all laid out there in his stall—Seguin 91 on the back and the A on his chest.

He reaches out, touches it. It’s so….he’d never thought anyone would ever trust him with this. With anything like this. He’d never trust himself with this.

“Hey.” Jamie checks his hip lightly. “I knew you liked clothes, but this isn’t even designer.”

“Fuck off,” Tyler replies, off hand. He can’t stop staring. He’d known—he’d watched tape—but he didn’t  _know_. “Everything I wear is designer.”

“Does that make sense?”

“Who cares?” Tyler traces the letter again. “Coach really gave me this?”

“You really earned it,” Jamie says, stern. Tyler glances at him—he looks stern too, the sort of look that means he’s trying to just will something into existence.

“Well, some version of me did.”

“You did,” Jamie corrects. “Like, a you you can’t remember, or whatever, but it was you.”

Tyler draws in a slow breath. “What if I don’t remember?” he asks, quiet under the noise of the locker room. “What if I never do, and I’m not this person that everyone thinks I am?”

Jamie punches his shoulder. Hard, which shouldn’t be a comfort but is. “You are that person anyway,” he tells Tyler, in that voice he has, like he’d said ‘let’s prove them wrong’, like he’d said ‘sign again and we’ll win it together’, like he’d said ‘I knew you’d do it’ on a voicemail in Prague. Like the world can try to be different, but Jamie Benn’s going to stand in its way and see who moves first. “So put on your jersey,” he goes on. “I need my A.”

It’s—Tyler doesn’t remember, and Jamie still wants him to wear the A. Tyler doesn’t remember, and things are still not what they should be between them, and Jamie still wants him in the A.

“Klinger not enough for you?” Tyler teases back, and takes the jersey off the stand.

“I never said that,” Jamie replies. Klinger, hearing his name, looks up and makes a face at them. He sits down to finish lacing up his skates. “Come on, let’s go. We don’t want to be late.”

Tyler pulls his jersey on faster after that. He’d learned that lesson, after all; he never wants to see Jamie’s face look like it had when Coach had told them Tyler was a scratch, like his world didn’t make sense because Tyler wouldn’t let him down but he had, for the Art Ross—

Tyler freezes.

He remembers that face. Remembers how Jamie had looked at him, clear as a bell, clear as if he had been there himself. Which he had been.

“Segs?” Rads asks, tapping his arm. “Alright?”

Tyler blinks. “I—did I really fucking miss the game where you won the Art Ross?” he asks, and the whole locker room goes silent.

Jamie’s frozen. He looks up, his eyes somehow even bigger than normal.

“Yeah,” he says slowly. “Did you look that up?”

Tyler shakes his head, hard and fast. “I remembered.”

“He remembered!” Rads cheers, loud right in his ear, and Tyler jumps. “Memories not gone forever!”

Tyler should be happy. He is happy, he’s remembering. But—

Fuck, what a memory to start with.

“Jamie, I—”

Jamie straightens. He doesn’t look angry, but that was years ago, Tyler guesses. He’s probably gotten over it. “Congrats, Seggy,” he says, and he smiles but there’s something else on his face, something that Tyler can’t quite identify but is definitely more on the sad side of the spectrum. “You’ll be you again in no time. Told you.”

“Whose brain was doing all the hard work?” Tyler retorts on instinct, and Jamie laughs and claps his shoulder again, then heads out to the rink.

Tyler goes through warm ups half in a daze. He knows he needs to focus on the game, but—

He grabs Jamie as they head off the ice. “It wasn’t—me missing the game, that wasn’t what fucked up things between us, right?” he asks, ducking his head close so that their helmets brush. It can’t be—the timing doesn’t make sense—but he knows he fucked it up somehow and that’s a pretty big fuck up. In some ways he wants it to be that; that’d be easy. That’d make sense. Tyler fucked up and Jamie didn’t want him anymore, didn’t trust him. Even though he does trust Tyler, put an A on his jersey.

He can actually hear Jamie’s exhale. “No. I mean, I was pissed for like, the whole summer, but—no.” He pulls back, and there’s that expression again, a weird happy-sad mixture. “Head in the game now, Segs. Let’s get some points.”

Tyler takes a breath in. Right. Hockey. Hockey he knows. No matter what he does or doesn’t remember.

///

After that, it all starts to come back—or maybe Tyler just notices it coming back. He goes home after winning two points and see the dogs and remembers bringing Gerry home for the first time, angling the camera to get the new baby in the Instagram video. He looks around the house and remembers choosing to buy it, remembers how much his mom loved the countertops and he loved the patio and backyard.

It’s fits and starts, and it doesn’t feel whole, but Tyler can feel himself knitting back together. He remembers getting handed the jersey with his A for the first time. He remembers Jamie’s epic sulk when Jordie got traded, the face he’d put on for the media and the tantrum Tyler had watched from his couch. Sometimes it’s out of nowhere—Tyler’s sitting in a bar and suddenly he remembers the great sandwich place he’d found a month ago—and sometimes it’s because of something else—Rads brings Makar to practice and suddenly it’s all there, hanging out with the kid, him running with the dogs as Rads and Tyler drank a beer on the couch.

It’s pretty awesome, really. Tyler feels more and more like himself—he remembers who that is more and more. Remembers that he’s not the kid fucked up from Boston and the trade and his first time dropping the playoffs early; remembers the long slow painful process of growing up.

The guys stop giving him side eye and start smiling around him again; the rookies all seem to take a collective breath and start piling on him; he actually calls all his non-hockey friends to let them know what happened.

It should all be getting better, but—

Jamie.

Jamie, who’s getting quieter again. Oh, not on the ice or on the bench, but around Tyler, like he hasn’t since—since those first few weeks after New York, which he still can’t remember; since the first time they met. Who’s stopped coming over to play with the dogs, and Tyler _knows_ now that’s weird. Tyler doesn’t like it. Him remembering was supposed to get Jamie back, but even now that he’s remembering more, that he can say that he remembers their last exit from playoff contention and still loves Jamie, he’s losing him again.

Until—Tyler’s making himself dinner, because fuck Jamie he’s finally remembering how to actually cook more than one meal—and halfway through cutting an onion and getting annoyed at Jamie for not being there to eat it with him, Tyler remembers.

He puts down the knife. Then he goes to the door, shoves on some sneakers and grabs a hoodie to cover his tank top, and gets in his car.

He’s at Jamie’s ten minutes later. He doesn’t bother knocking, just lets himself in.

Jamie’s in the kitchen, stirring something over a pot, and he looks up when Tyler comes in.

“Hey, Segs, what’s—”

“You got a fucking girlfriend!” Tyler spits out. It’s not the best opening line, maybe, but it’s what’s there.

Jamie tilts his head, draws in a little bit like that wound’s still fresh. “Um, yeah. I thought you remembered—”

“No, you—I—that’s what took me this long!”

Jamie sighs, and his shoulders are still curled in. He can’t seem to meet Tyler’s eyes. “Segs, you remember, you don’t have to keep doing this, I know it was just you without—I mean, the old you—”

“Fuck that.” Tyler marches right up to Jamie, grabs the front of his shirt, and tugs, and Jamie’s conveniently ducking his head at the right height for Tyler to kiss.

Jamie jerks away—then jerks sideways, when they both seem to realize there’s an open flame right there. “What the fuck, Segs?” he yelps. “I thought you were remembering shit!”

“Yeah, I am. I did. I remember that four months after New York you were dating—”

“You hooked up with someone the night after!” Jamie shouts back, and there’s the temper, the end of Jamie’s very long rope. “Are you seriously mad at me for that?”

“No, I—” Tyler pushes back his hair. He’s still got a hand in Jamie’s shirt and he doesn’t intend to let go. “No, but I remember, okay? I remember what happened.”

“Great, me too. We don’t have to go over it again.”

“Yes, we do, because—”

“I don’t want to hear about how you actually don’t want me again, once was enough.” Jamie tries to take a step away, but Tyler doesn’t let him go.

“You won’t.”

“It’s been four years, Ty. I don’t need your pity—”

“I freaked out!” Tyler interrupts him. He  _remembers_ , thank god. “Do you want to know what happened? I was twenty-three and stupid and—you just saw how I was then, I didn’t know how to be a grown up, I didn’t know what to do with everything you made me feel, I was sure I was going to let—everyone down. Let you down.” Tyler shakes his head. He’d forgotten that, somewhere along the way—just how sure he was that he messed things up, how automatically he assumed that. How long it took him to learn that maybe that wasn’t true. Or, that he could let Jamie down, totally, and Jamie would still come back. “And so yeah, I said shit, and I freaked, and then—Jamie, you didn’t even say anything when I was flirting with that girl!”

He remembers that too, standing at the bar and chatting with the girl—Kristen, that was her name, a red-head with killer legs—and feeling Jamie’s eyes on her and waiting for Jamie to do something, to fight because that was what Jamie did, he pushed for what he wanted, didn’t let things get in his way—and then nothing, and Tyler was leaving with Kristen and Jamie did nothing, and Tyler had known what that meant, that Jamie didn’t want it, not like Tyler did. He remembers the cold ache of that.

“You had just said you didn’t want me.” Jamie’s jaw is set and he’s glaring somewhere in the region of Tyler’s forehead.

“You had to know I was lying through my ass.” Tyler shakes his head. “Like, everyone knows, dude.”

“I—” Jamie’s Adam’s apple bobs. “It barely made sense to me that you’d want me once, back then. I mean, it didn’t make any sense at all. So you not wanting me more than once—that seemed right.”

“Jamie.” Tyler’s other hand is on Jamie’s jaw now, stroking at the hard line of his jaw.

Jamie shrugs. “It’s not—you remember what I was like,” he says, half a smile on.

“Yeah, it was really cute,” Tyler agrees. Jamie’s cheeks are red, but he’s still not looking at Tyler. “But I’m glad you grew out of it.” 

“See, that’s—” Jamie jerks his head away, if not his shirt out of Tyler’s hold. “Fine, four years ago you were into me, but that was four years—”

“You were happy.” Tyler can remember this now too, and he almost wishes he didn’t, except that he can’t find it in him to have wished Jamie unhappy. “I—by the time I got my shit together and stopped freaking out, you had a girlfriend, and, like—you loved her. I didn’t—I’d missed my shot, and that was—it sucked, but like, I wasn’t going to try to break you up over it.” Not when he wasn’t sure of who would win. “You were happy, right?”

“Yeah. I mean—yeah.” Jamie’s eyes flicker again, that grief that’s still there over the break-up, but it’s gone quickly. “But—four years? Still?” He sounds incredulous. Disbelieving. Maybe he hasn’t grown out of it that much.

Tyler’s hand tightens in Jamie’s shirt. No, that’s not right. They have grown. He’s not the freaked out kid anymore, Jamie’s grown his confidence. They’re adults now, give or take. And Tyler wants—

“Still,” he says. He gets Jamie’s thing about eye contact now, though; he can’t say this and look at Jamie. “I mean, I just didn’t think—I figured you weren’t into me, or I’d been so used to thinking that that I didn’t see anything else, until my dipshit amnesia-ed self noticed and almost scared you off for good—”

“Hey,” Jamie interrupts, and there’s something looser about his voice. “That younger self was pretty cute.”

Tyler looks up. Jamie’s smiling at him, nervous but—he’s still looking at Tyler like there’s nothing he could do to make Jamie stop believing in him. “I love you,” he says, and it’s not hard at all, somehow. He’s not scared. Not like he would have been four years ago. “I—god, Jamie, I was so in love with you that it didn’t occur to me that that could change, and I’m still riding that ‘gonna love you forever’ train.”

“Yeah?” But Jamie’s for real smiling now, dimples deep in his cheek.

“Yeah, you’re stuck with me. You know what they say about strays, and you fed me, so.”

Jamie laughs, and then he’s the one kissing Tyler, one hand behind Tyler’s head and the other at his hip, and—Jamie might not say much with words, but man can he say a lot with a kiss.

Jamie kisses like he means it, with the same barely controlled aggression of the ice and something of his usual sweetness, and Tyler gives back as much as he gets. Four years—four years of looking at Jamie’s stupid swollen lips and imagining and trying not to because they were both idiots and now he gets this, gets Jamie’s big hands stroking over him, of learning how the beard changes Jamie’s kiss.

Jamie’s hands are off Tyler, and Tyler moans. “What? Jamie—”

Jamie laughs, reaching behind himself, and turns off the stove.

“Oh. Good job,” Tyler decides, and then he’s kissing each of Jamie’s dimples and down his jaw. His hand’s still sandwiched between them in Jamie’s shirt, and so Tyler can feel the rumble in Jamie’s chest, how he’s pushing closer, if the hands that are roaming down to his ass weren’t a sign.

Tyler grins into Jamie’s skin. Jamie in New York had been a little shy; he likes this Jamie. “Couch or bed?” he asks.

“Hm?” Jamie blinks down at him. Tyler knows he doesn’t remember everything about Jamie, not all their moments, but he thinks he can say with certainty that this is the best he’s ever looked, flushed and messy and dazed.

“Couch, or can we make it all the way to your bed?” Tyler asks. “Unless you want the floor, but I think we’re both too old for that.”

Jamie’s eyes glint for a second like he’s planning to take that challenge, but then he snorts and steps back. “Bed,” he decides, looking all sure and captainly, and Tyler uses the hand on his shirt to tug him back in and kiss him again for it.

They get distracted by that, but then—“Bed,” Jamie repeats, sounding pained. “Come on.”

His hand is tight on Tyler’s wrist, but he doesn’t need to pull Tyler anywhere; he’s already there, lockstep because where else would he be.

Tyler barely waits for them to get into Jamie’s bedroom before he’s stripping off his hoodie and tank top and shoving down his pants. Jamie snorts, but he’s definitely staring. Tyler knows what he’s doing here.

He saunters to the bed, and pushes at Jamie’s chest, so he falls onto the bed. He’s still staring. Tyler can feel himself getting harder just from Jamie’s frank stare.

“Like what you see?” he asks, and Jamie chuckles, slides his hand down Tyler’s chest.

“Yeah,” he admits, and Tyler grins.

“Good.” He straddles Jamie’s thighs. “Now you.”

Jamie seems reluctant to stop touching Tyler, but he strips off his shirt quickly enough—another difference from New York, where Tyler had had to coax his shirt off. God, Tyler loved Jamie’s body then and he loves it now, all strength and size and solidity.

He starts to stroke his way up Jamie’s chest, but then Jamie moves and somehow Tyler’s on his back, Jamie over him.

“Fuck, Benn,” Tyler breathes, impressed. “That’s a good move.”

Jamie grins. “Thanks,” he says, and kisses Tyler again. Tyler gets a thigh around Jamie and pulls him in even closer, so his dick is rubbing against Jamie’s sweats and he can feel Jamie’s dick beneath the cloth.

“Pants,” Tyler mutters, but Jamie’s already moving, and together they shove off Jamie’s sweats and he kicks them off and then he’s back, kissing Tyler again, and Tyler’s done a lot more in bed with plenty of different people but it’s never felt like this, couldn’t ever feel like this, with Jamie kissing him, touching him, like the world begins and ends with him; with Tyler’s hands on Jamie’s body because he can’t bear not to be touching.

“Can I—” Jamie drags his mouth away from Tyler’s neck. “I want to blow you.”

“Um, fuck yes.” Part of remembering is apparently remembering how much he’d thought about Jamie’s mouth. But then, “I didn’t think you did that, though.”

“Screw you, why’d you have to remember that,” Jamie mutters, as he shuffles down the bed, his hands on Tyler’s hips, pinning them to the bed.

“Later,” Tyler tells him, and watches Jamie’s eyes go dark and his tongue flick out to wet his lips.

Jamie doesn’t fuck around—Tyler’s already hard and he gets his mouth on Tyler’s dick and just goes for it, no real tricks but he doesn’t need them because he’s just sucking hard and it’s Jamie’s fucking mouth and Jamie looking up at him and his hands are on Tyler’s hips, his thighs, and Tyler’s writhing under his hands, already desperate—it’s Jamie he never wasn’t going to be, and fuck—

“Jamie, I’m—”

Jamie pulls off with an obscene noise. “I can’t—” he admits, but he’s working Tyler over with his hand, steady and sure, watching Tyler so closely Tyler thinks he’ll explode from it.

The heat in Tyler’s belly has spilled over into his limbs, his fingers, apparently his mouth because he doesn’t know what he’s saying but he thinks it includes Jamie’s name, and then—Jamie’s kissing him again, his big body pressing Tyler down and his hand on Tyler’s dick, and Tyler breaks.

Jamie is looking somehow simultaneously pleased with himself, turned on, and a little anxious when Tyler makes it back to himself.

“I know I—it’s been a while, with a guy,” he mutters. Tyler gapes.

“Jamie, you just like, sucked my mind out through my dick, I don’t fucking care if you swallow,” he says, and gets a hand in Jamie’s hair to drag him back towards Tyler to kiss him.

That gets rid of the nervousness, but not all the smugness or the arousal. Tyler revises his opinion—this might be an even better looked, Jamie confident and turned on and staring at Tyler’s body like it frankly deserves to be looked at.

“C’mere,” Tyler mumbles, and then he manages to roll over so Jamie’s on his back, staring up at Tyler. “Fuck, where to start with you.”

“Tyler,” Jamie groans, and Tyler grins.

He didn’t get this, last time; didn’t get to take his time, to enjoy. He wouldn’t have known how to, really. But now—

Now Tyler kisses Jamie again, and again. I promise I won’t let you down, he bites into Jamie’s jaw. I’ll make this work, into his neck and chest. Tyler knows he’s a good fucking lay, and he’s going to prove it, not because Jamie’s going anywhere but because he wants to blow Jamie’s mind. I won’t forget, he sinks into Jamie’s thighs, and Jamie groans and his muscles twitch, and Tyler smiles.

He doesn’t have the patience to really draw it out, but he still pulls out a few fun tricks because watching Jamie go crazy is great. His hands are clenched into fists in the sheets; Tyler slides his hand up, until it’s over Jamie’s; Jamie flips his hand over and their fingers intertwine, fit together, and then—

“Tyler,” Jamie warns, and Tyler swallows him down that last little bit as he comes, quiet but for a low rumbling moan.

Tyler wipes off his mouth, then sits up. Jamie’s limp in the sheets, and yeah, this is definitely the best he’s ever looked.

“Hey,” Jamie mumbles, and Tyler laughs and flops down next to him.

“Good?”

Jamie grunts. Tyler grins to himself.

“Score one for chemistry, eh? We got this shit.”

Jamie shakes his head, but he’s smiling. Then—“You know, I love you, right?” 

Tyler can feel his smile freeze for a second, but—yeah. He’d felt that in Jamie’s kiss, and he knows Jamie. Knows the ways it’s easier for him to use actions, not words. “Yeah, I know.”

Jamie’s dark eyes are way too serious for lying in bed, just fucked. “I didn’t say it downstairs, but—”

“I know, dude.” Tyler rolls over so that he can have a hand on either side of Jamie’s head. “I trust you.”

Jamie smiles then, and Tyler has to kiss him. I won’t fuck up so badly you can’t forgive me, he tries to put into that quick press of their lips, I’ll try to be the person you see me as.

When he pulls away, Jamie’s still smiling, but he’s got that look in his eyes again, like he’s going to make the world change around him. “And don’t forget it,” he tells Tyler, an order, a plea.

“I promise,” Tyler vows, and leans down to kiss him again, longer this time, to seal it.

Tyler remembers their first kiss, that long-ago New York night, all desperation and pining. They’re not those people anymore; the kiss isn’t that kiss.

It’s better.

**Author's Note:**

> Liked it? Want to talk about it? Comment or come chat on tumblr at [ fanforthefics!](http://fanforthefics.tumblr.com/)


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